Review: 'Swing Vote' incorrectly proves one man makes a difference

Swing Vote    PG  13            

            Joshua Michael Stern reinvents the electoral system in the USA with this goofball loser flick about a drunken man, Bud (Kevin Costner), his plucky moppet liberal daughter, Katie (Madeline Carroll) and a voter mishap that somehow propels Bud to the center of national news in a small New Mexico town. Katie sneaks into the polling place during the closest election ever recorded, (closer than Bush versus Gore or Bush versus Kerry), and votes for her slacker daddy, only the machines stop working because it's closing time. So this one single vote counts as the deciding vote of which the new President is elected! The candidates are Kelsey Grammar's incumbent Bush clone or the upstart oily liberal upstart Kerry clone. The news media goes insane and surround his house while both presidents send hordes of PR people to kiss his butt and try to pull him to their side. Taking the idea of 'One man can make a difference: so vote' literally..the flick at times it's so in love with this idea that it's not funny. Stretches of movie are spent preaching about the drudgery of the common man versus the elite political moneymakers trying to exploit him. Costner's character would have in any other situation simply told them to buzz off and that he didn't vote. (He hides his kid's illegal count to protect his butt not hers, but then does that mean one absent voter counts for millions of others even though for years he didn't?) Also this fantasy nation in the story has it wrong. One vote would never count. Once the public votes for the president and he wins the popular vote, then the Electoral College decides who actually won. So no matter how many people vote, it isn't up to them, it's up to the electors. The only way that Bud could have been counted is if he was a New Mexico legislator elected to the college, and he was undecided. Also there are security cameras in polling areas to make sure people don't just add votes and no the kid couldn't have forged his signature. Nor is ther kid that honest for not coming forward in the beginning before the frenzy. Taken as a parody though, it's decent satire. Just don't take one whit of it seriously, even when they do. The mother is absent for most of the flick in a role reversal where normally it would be a deadbeat loser dad idea. If Bud and Katie represent all of America, that's a sad day for the republic. It could have been 3 stars but in the end it's about as satisfying as being reminded about the Bush administration.      
Review by Adam Browne